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What a difference 3 years can make.
Let’s face it – in 'football time’, 3 years can be an eternity.
It was 2009, and Jim Zorn was trying his best to get out of DC with some shred of self-respect, with only partial success. In his 2nd and final season, Zorn’s Redskins had won just 4 games while being relegated to the basement of the NFC East. Fans were in outright revolt, their once heralded franchise the laughing stock of the NFL. The Redskins sported the 26th ranked offense in the league, and no solution, save 'blowing it up’ again, was in sight.
I wrote a blog that year, titled 'Sunday’s Smell’. I’ve thought about that blog a number of times during this 2012 season, as the Redskins have become something I was barely capable of even conjuring in those darker days. It was a blog birthed from pure frustration, about who we were as Redskins fans, where we’d been, and most importantly, wondering where in God’s name we might be going…
In that 2009 blog, I finally asked myself the obvious question. Why would any of us continue to subject ourselves to the pain that was being a Washington Redskins fan?
Sure, NFL football is a wonderful, exciting game. But what drove us to make it such a big part of our lives, if we’re being honest, as important as work, family, and friends? What was it about our Redskins fandom that so inflamed our passions? How could we endure the heartache and disappointment that rooting for a broken, stumbling, and bumbling franchise now encompassed?
For me, the answer was clear. Our fandom was part of our heritage, how we grew up, who we were, where we came from.
But in 2009, Redskins fans were at the precipice.
And gone it was. We’d watched a storied franchise become that which we never believed it could become – one that could not win. Fans questioned everything about this team, its veteran players, the front office, and most savagely, the competence of its lightning rod owner. Fans, this one included, were fed up.
But even at that 2009 nadir, at the edge of hopelessness, a tiny smoldering ember of something we call 'hope’ stubbornly burned.
And incredibly, amazingly, stupifyingly, just 3 years removed from this angst-ridden, morbidly depressing blog entry, good things have, in fact, happened.
Our Redskins owner is barely mentioned in the press these days. What’s his name again? We’ve got a quality General Manager and coaching staff that knows what it’s doing. Our 2012 coaching staff doesn’t care what the owner, press, or the fans think – they know football and that’s what drives their every decision. In the face of skepticism, criticism, even scorn, they’ve kept the faith and begun putting the pieces of a successful franchise together, most notably, doing what it took to acquire a young QB who truly will be the face of this franchise for the next decade.
My, how far we’ve come in 3 years. We’ve watched in wonderment and amazement as a team, once poised on the brink of disaster and irrelevance, now faces a precipice of another kind. Across this abyss, you can glimpse glory.
Sunday’s coming. I can smell it.
This one will be a Sunday unlike any we’ve seen in DC in a long, long time. A Sunday full of promise and hope. A Sunday where everything is on the line. A late December Sunday where the outcome matters. A Sunday that could be inspiring, even legendary.
I can’t wait to see where this Sunday, and the many Sundays to follow, takes us.
Hail.
Let’s face it – in 'football time’, 3 years can be an eternity.
It was 2009, and Jim Zorn was trying his best to get out of DC with some shred of self-respect, with only partial success. In his 2nd and final season, Zorn’s Redskins had won just 4 games while being relegated to the basement of the NFC East. Fans were in outright revolt, their once heralded franchise the laughing stock of the NFL. The Redskins sported the 26th ranked offense in the league, and no solution, save 'blowing it up’ again, was in sight.
I wrote a blog that year, titled 'Sunday’s Smell’. I’ve thought about that blog a number of times during this 2012 season, as the Redskins have become something I was barely capable of even conjuring in those darker days. It was a blog birthed from pure frustration, about who we were as Redskins fans, where we’d been, and most importantly, wondering where in God’s name we might be going…
In that 2009 blog, I finally asked myself the obvious question. Why would any of us continue to subject ourselves to the pain that was being a Washington Redskins fan?
Sure, NFL football is a wonderful, exciting game. But what drove us to make it such a big part of our lives, if we’re being honest, as important as work, family, and friends? What was it about our Redskins fandom that so inflamed our passions? How could we endure the heartache and disappointment that rooting for a broken, stumbling, and bumbling franchise now encompassed?
For me, the answer was clear. Our fandom was part of our heritage, how we grew up, who we were, where we came from.
But in 2009, Redskins fans were at the precipice.
And gone it was. We’d watched a storied franchise become that which we never believed it could become – one that could not win. Fans questioned everything about this team, its veteran players, the front office, and most savagely, the competence of its lightning rod owner. Fans, this one included, were fed up.
But even at that 2009 nadir, at the edge of hopelessness, a tiny smoldering ember of something we call 'hope’ stubbornly burned.
And incredibly, amazingly, stupifyingly, just 3 years removed from this angst-ridden, morbidly depressing blog entry, good things have, in fact, happened.
Our Redskins owner is barely mentioned in the press these days. What’s his name again? We’ve got a quality General Manager and coaching staff that knows what it’s doing. Our 2012 coaching staff doesn’t care what the owner, press, or the fans think – they know football and that’s what drives their every decision. In the face of skepticism, criticism, even scorn, they’ve kept the faith and begun putting the pieces of a successful franchise together, most notably, doing what it took to acquire a young QB who truly will be the face of this franchise for the next decade.
My, how far we’ve come in 3 years. We’ve watched in wonderment and amazement as a team, once poised on the brink of disaster and irrelevance, now faces a precipice of another kind. Across this abyss, you can glimpse glory.
Sunday’s coming. I can smell it.
This one will be a Sunday unlike any we’ve seen in DC in a long, long time. A Sunday full of promise and hope. A Sunday where everything is on the line. A late December Sunday where the outcome matters. A Sunday that could be inspiring, even legendary.
I can’t wait to see where this Sunday, and the many Sundays to follow, takes us.
Hail.
